Posted on August 17, 2022

NYC Moving Migrants Into Famed Luxury Times Square Hotel

Bernadette Hogan et al., New York Post, August 15, 2022

A luxury Manhattan hotel once touted as the “Lullabuy of Broadway” will soon be providing beddy-bye to hundreds of asylum-seeking migrants, The Post has learned.

Mayor Eric Adams plans to convert the Row NYC — formerly known as the Milford Plaza and located in pricey tourist-packed Times Square — into an intake center and shelter for as many as 600 migrant families amid the city’s spiraling homelessness crisis, three sources familiar with the matter said.

“In a month or two, we’re about to open up for [the city Department of Homeless Services], for homeless,” a hotel staffer told The Post on Monday.

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{snip} At the stately Row NYC on Eighth Avenue between West 44th and West 45th streets, guests are greeted by a scene similar to those at red-carpet events, with a carpeted section of sidewalk at its entrance and stone steps inlaid with decorative lights. A vinyl banner at the top of the stairs features the hotel’s logo — adding to the perfect setting for tourists and guests to snap selfies and other photos.

The Internet lounge in the lobby offers six sleek iMac computers that provide 30 minutes of free Web surfing. There also is a third-floor fitness center with treadmills, elliptical machines, recumbent bicycles and free weights.

Even “standard” rooms boast “understated city chic” decor, including “graphic wall coverings and bold colors,” as well as high-speed WiFi and 32-inch, flat-screen LCD TVs with cable programming, according to the hotel’s website.

The daily weekday rate for a standard room with one full or queen bed in mid-September — around when the hotel could begin housing migrants – – ranges from $414.42 to $435.07 per night, including taxes and “facilities fees” and depending on the view.

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The city’s plan involving the Row NYC was fast-tracked to try to help address the ongoing surge of asylum-seekers to the Big Apple, with the city striking the deal with the hotel after DHS quietly issued a desperate request for proposals last week, sources said. {snip}

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Row NYC, at 700 Eighth Ave., is a 28-story, 1,300-room building located about three blocks north of the Port Authority Bus Terminal, where Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has been sending busloads of migrants to protest what he calls President Biden’s “irresponsible open border policies.”

The migrants are being released into the US to seek asylum in immigration courts after being stopped by Border Patrol agents, either at established border crossings or after entering the country illegally.

Last month, Adams revealed that the city’s shelter system was being overwhelmed by migrants, some of whom The Post revealed were directed to New York by federal immigration officials despite having no relatives or other ties here.

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{snip} While it’s unclear what the Row will receive for renting out its rooms to the city to house homeless migrants, the previous de Blasio administration inked a deal during COVID that cost nearly $300 million to put up those without housing in such hotels. The average room rate at the time, when hotels were floundering, was $120.

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